It’s imperative that I begin by stating what this letter is not. First and foremost, it’s not meant as a generalized bashing of the members of my former church, or Christians in general. Some of the nicest people I’ve met are members of Immanuel Baptist, and are individuals I am still happy to associate with to this day. I will however discuss the general nature of this congregation in one anecdote. This letter is not intended to encourage harm or hatred towards anybody from Immanuel Baptist. This is not a refutation of the dogmas of Immanuel Baptist, or the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary that it’s linked to. This is not an exposé on why I am an atheist and do not believe Christianity is true. Although some of the reasons will be alluded to as part of this general narrative, it’s beyond the scope and purpose of this letter. Finally, it’s not an attempt to justify my beliefs or decisions to anyone.
I maintain no distortion that I have managed myself perfectly through all of these situations. I’m also well aware that the majority of Christians that I formerly interacted with will never agree with my perspective. I respect their disagreement and don’t care about changing any of their minds. The people who are still in my life now, who I’m fortunate never left when I became a Christian, support me and don’t need further explanation than what I have already provided them.
So what’s my purpose in writing? This letter is for the potential new convert. The potential new member of this church. The individual who’s just started at one of the local universities and is beginning to interact with this community, as I was five years ago. For the individual who’s looking up Immanuel Baptist and wanting to know more about it. My attempt is not to persuade you on what to believe or lecture you on who to interact with. My intention is only to provide a perspective that probably won’t be heard from those within that community, and one that I wish I had heard during my journey through all of this. A perspective that at least would have given me a needed moment of hesitation. That’s the purpose of this letter.
A last preface, I will leave the majority of the individuals mentioned in this anonymous, out of respect for the privacy of them and their families. The one individual I will mention by name is head pastor Ryan Fullerton. As the public leader of Immanuel Baptist, this is warranted. I cannot provide all of the context that led me to becoming a member with this church; that’s a long story for a different time. But the story I do wish to tell is of the mismanagement and disingenuous manipulation of the system that is Immanuel Baptist. I’m going to cover five incidents that I believe encapsulate this perspective, although this is far from providing every relevant event.
The first incident that caused me to begin to look differently at Immanuel Baptist was the day of Ryan Fullerton’s searing sermon on the topic of hell. I must dive a little into Christian theology for context. Although this probably sounds quite strange, one of the pieces of Christian theology I have studied the most is the topic of hell. It’s always been something that (understandably) disturbed me and seemed like a big elephant in the room, which led me to devote a significant effort to studying it. From scripture, to historical context, to the church fathers, to Christian apologists, I have spent a lot of time studying and thinking about hell. Additionally, I did not grow up in a Christian home, and the majority of people in my life, prior to becoming immersed in Christian community, have not been Christian.
Immanuel Baptist has two vague statements in reference to hell within their doctrinal covenants. The first states that “unbelievers enter torment”. The second states that “the wicked shall go into everlasting punishment”. There are various verses listed in reference to these topics. Now, as even a cursory study of the topic of hell within Christian theology will show you, what exactly is meant by “torment” and “everlasting punishment” and how that actually functions is highly disputed. The interpretations of verses pertaining to hell are highly disputed. So on and so forth. After spending months and months trying to determine what I made of hell, I was of the mind that attempting to apply biblical exegesis, historical context, and theological considerations, the best representation of this topic was a view called “annihilationism.” Essentially, the concept that there would be a judgement of non-believers, that this would involve physical punishment, but that they would not continue to exist forever in punishment; they would be annihilated (see 2 Peter 2:6, and the OT story it references, for an example).
Now, this was not the perspective given by Ryan Fullerton from the pulpit on the day of the first incident. Ryan preached about a literal, physical fire that would torture the bodies of non-believers eternally, a view known as eternal conscious torment. As he extolled God’s wrath during this sermon, I broke down in tears. No matter what one believes about hell, the thought of that immense physical pain for so many Christians who didn’t hold to our theology, for many of my friends and family members, for colleagues, neighbors, and non-believers throughout history was enough to bring anyone to tears… or so one would think. I remember lifting my head and peering around the church through tear stained eyes at the end of that sermon; and seeing absolute indifference. I obviously can’t speak for every individual or read their minds, but outwardly, almost nobody I saw looked uncomfortable. Nobody was angry. Nobody was upset, nobody was crying. Complete and utter apathy. The congregation looked as though they had just been informed about the weather. Were these the individuals who spoke about how wretched the “outside world” was? Did they actually believe or understand what was being said? Regardless of any interpretation or validity of the idea in the first place, how lacking in empathy did one have to be to believe these ideas and not be heartbroken? I was disturbed.
Attempting to set my emotions aside, I realized that I differed from the leader of my church on this topic. Therefore it was reasonable for me to inform him that I had a different perspective on the matter, desiring to ensure that it didn’t put me in a bad position with the church (even if annihilationism is a position that other Baptist theologians had advocated, mind you). I approached him in the pulpit as the congregation was dispersing after the sermon and explained to him my view. Ryan stated that my view was dangerous and did not elaborate on why. He did not want to give me an answer to the question of whether someone could be in good standing with the church if they had a different depiction of what “hell” is. Why I couldn’t be given a sincere answer to a straight-forward question, I was never told. We then had a meandering discussion about the topic for a few minutes, and resolved to have a meet-up discussion at a later date to sort through the issue. I had a whole essay written on the topic prepared; but needless to say, I was disillusioned.
The second incident was the follow up discussion with Ryan Fullerton. At this point I had confessed to my wife, and several elders/members of the church, that I didn’t believe Christianity was true, which was something I had been grappling with for a very long time prior to all of this. I informed the church that I wanted to discuss my doubts and questions. As Ryan was informed of my lack of belief, and since my lack of belief wasn’t predicated on the topic of hell, hell was understably no longer the focus of our meeting as we had initially intended. Ryan, my now ex-wife and I met up for lunch after a Sunday service for the follow up discussion. I proceeded to explain to him the various reasons I didn’t think Christianity was true, and at one point I made the statement that many of the arguments being made by those around me were circular. Ryan became irate at this assertion, and asked me to give him an example of any argument that wasn’t circular. I proceeded to state that all dogs are mammals, Charlie is a dog, and therefore Charlie is a mammal. He then exclaimed “that’s not an argument!”. I looked at him quite puzzled, as I had just provided him with a syllogism. It then became apparent to me that we weren’t there to have an honest discussion, and the ridiculous nature of what was occurring became evident. “Look”, Ryan said, highly frustrated, “I think you just need to bend the knee to Jesus.” We proceeded for a little longer in discussion. Ryan brought up the topic of porn and how many people don’t quit it for the right reasons; despite this having nothing to do with my situation. I discussed some Christian authors I was reading at the time that were somewhat uplifting, and that was about the end of the conversation.
The third incident was a meeting that occurred at a coffee shop with two of the elders of the church, one who led a weekday worship night I attended (I will call him individual A) and another (I will call him individual B) who would be filling the role of continuing to minister to me once individual A left the church, as individual A was moving to a new state. We met up to discuss why I was doubting their beliefs. I opened up my journal that was chock full of all the notes I had regarding my readings in studying Christianity and arguments for theism, and all of the textual, historical, and logical issues I was seeing. We spent very little time discussing my notes. I was given an anecdote by individual A about another individual who had left Christianity because he stated he would rather be in hell than give up being gay, once again a sexual discussion that was completely irrelevant to me. Individual B discussed some of his time doubting as he conducted overseas missions and how everything would be quite pointless if his beliefs weren’t true. He then laughingly stated that if god wasn’t real, why don’t I just go kill somebody? In an effort to be charitable I recognize that this was some attempt at a moral argument for the existence of god. But the fearful way in which this man said it made me wonder if he didn’t believe in these ancient books that discussed sinners being physically punished, if he would immediately go kill somebody. Needless to say, I was becoming concerned. Finally, and most inappropriately, my marriage was brought up and insinuated as being what this was all about; despite this whole meeting supposedly being about the truth of Christianity. I was beginning to see how things at Immanuel Baptist functioned.
The fourth incident occurred after I had initially been brought up for ex-communication in front of the church during one of our monthly meetings. My lack of belief was explained to the church, my divorce was discussed, and it was stated that a vote would take place in front of the congregation to remove me from membership if my beliefs didn’t change. That meeting was in front of roughly 250 church members. It was only a brief few paragraphs of explanation provided to the congregation by individual B, and most congregants just looked on in disappointment or confusion. A few came up to me afterwards and said that they respected that I had even shown up in the first place to watch all of this happen. Individual B approached me after the meeting and stated that there was a seminary professor/elder of the church who would be willing to meet with me to discuss my questions. I was ecstatic. Finally, I could have some substantive dialogue with someone about my thoughts. I immediately agreed to the meeting.
The meeting with the scholar occurred a few weeks later. The meeting was held at the church, and in attendance was individual B, the scholar (we will call him individual C), myself, and my ex-wife. The scholar was a former professor of the New Testament (NT) at Southern Seminary, had done work under renowned NT scholar Richard Baukham, was now teaching at a Seminary in California, and was currently working on a commentary on the book of Matthew. This man certainly knew his stuff, and as very much a nerd myself, I was excited to be able to ask him questions about the things I had been reading and learning in what hopefully could be a productive dialogue.
That unfortunately didn’t happen. My first question for Individual C was, if in his scholarly opinion, the Gospel of Matthew was an original Greek composition. Again, for the sake of this letter, I will not detail all the intricacies of the relevance of that question. He became very angry and exclaimed “Why are you asking that question?!”. I was exhausted. I was shaking, visibly upset, and intimidated. I asked if he could please just answer the question. It was evident to me he already knew the implications of what I was asking about. Individual C proceeded to admit to me that he did believe that Matthew was an original Greek composition, that the gospels of the NT were originally anonymous, and that I couldn’t put my faith in traditional authorship claims. I then asked him how many members of the congregation, and how many seminary students, understood this notion. He responded that most individuals were not familiar with the primary sources, and I was beginning to understand why that was. Individual C asked me if I was currently pursuing my Masters in Divinity. I was not, this research was all in my own time on top of a full time job, and I was seeing how many walls and hoops there were to getting information. The conversation then quickly devolved into Individual C stating that he needed to maintain both his “scholarly and his priestly cap”. We needed to pause our discussion on biblical topics, and discuss me, because it was “evident that I had mental health issues.” Now, this man had no formal training, as far as I was ever informed of, regarding psychiatry or psychology. It’s true I do suffer from severe obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I have had it since I can remember. I have been formally diagnosed multiple times, and it’s typically severe during stressful life events. I wouldn’t wish OCD on my worst enemy. But my mental health wasn’t the point of this meeting, and it was very clear that it was being weaponized against me in order to shut me up. It was being used as a means to divert and denigrate, as had the suggestions made in prior meetings with members of this church. Individual C did not know that I had OCD, and his repulsive assertion that I just seemed like someone who has mental health issues was par for the course with what I was beginning to expect from Immanuel Baptist. I was provided two books from the church, but little more came out of the meeting.
The fifth incident concerned the church offering to pay for mental health medication, when they didn’t legitimize the biological underpinnings of mental health issues to begin with. On October 8, 2023, Ryan Fullterton gave a sermon about Matthew 6:19-34. His preaching included a disdain with how Freudian psychology had led modern society to view “anxiety” as an entity, and that Jesus leads us to not view anxiety as a thing that we have, but as sinful conduct we do. Jesus’ message is to just “stop it” and that we should not accept that anxiety is just who we are. This view of mental health has been becoming increasingly popular among evangelical pastors, and the reasoning behind that is a whole other discussion. Now, as I was going through this deconversion process, I started seeking out mental health treatment and medication for my OCD. Meanwhile, there were discussions occurring among the elders unbeknownst to me. They had decided to tell my ex-wife, to tell me, that they would offer to pay to help me obtain medication. An entire infrastructure that had delegitimated and weaponized my mental health issues, attempting to alleviate its own conscience by offering to pay for my medications without having a direct discussion with me, was the epitome of hypocrisy. At this point I was not being helped, I was being used.
But it’s crucial that I represent things in the most honest possible manner. There were two other meetings, one with individual B at his home and another one with a different brother from the church, that were cordial, about intellectual ideas and life stories, and handled with care. Not every interaction I had with Immanuel Baptist was negative, but the majority of them were. I want to make it clear that these were complicated matters, and my goal here is not to provide an oversimplified explanation of the things that I saw and continue to see from this church. We humans are quite prone to that. But these are events that occurred, and I hope anyone who considers being involved with this Immanuel Baptist, whether they agree with my perspective or don’t, would at least take it into consideration. It’s evident that those who begin to apply any kind of scrutiny to what is occurring around them will likely be dismissed and manipulated. I hold no anger towards any of the people mentioned in this letter, but I do desire for others to have access to my story in making life-altering decisions for themselves and their families in regards to this church.
I will never forget one of my final discussions with Ryan Fullerton. One of the last Sundays I was in attendance, which I was at only to support my ex-wife’s continued faith, Ryan and I spoke as I was heading out of the church. He asked me a question. “What did I think about the impact that demonic influence was having on me?” That question deserved no response. One cannot argue with a man’s employment of “demons” to maintain his salary.
Blake